Sunday, December 02, 2012

Other People's Money, Spent for Other People

Email from W.H.:

Many times when people discuss Milton Friedman's fourth category of
spending they do so in a mistaken vacuum. How so? They forget to point
out HOW other people's money came to be. Stated alternatively, other
people spending other people's money on other people, the discussion
thereof, many, many times leaves out Friedman's first point: coercion.

Hence one
ends with an isolated discussion of how Friedman's fourth category of
spending points out the careless way or ineffective/inefficient way
that occurs by other people [politico]spending other people's money
[taxpayer] on other people [recipient class]. True enough but it
decouples the coercion and only discusses the single phenomena
without discussing [coupling] the ability of such a phenomena to emerge.
Think about it, how many times have you heard the discussion, in
isolation, of other people [cheese master] spending other
people's cheese [cheese payer] on other people [cheese recipient
class]??

Meanwhile, twenty six discussions later a separate
subject is discussed regarding coercion of forcibly appropriating other
people's money. Better yet, this discussion many times appears in
isolation from Friedman's total discussion.

Nay, nay! One must
correctly discuss both subjects as coercion must occur first and only
then can one arrive at other people spending other people's money on
other people.

Problem solved! Please go to 11:00 to 11:34 of the youtube link below and hear Friedman himself properly layout the discussion.
Here is the video...